


neon signs of life

by faeyoung



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Android Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Androids, Aromantic Character, Artificial Intelligence, Asexual Character, Body Dysphoria, Body Modification, Cybernetics, M/M, Minor Character Death, NCT are revolutionaries, Past Character Death, Polyamory Negotiations, Pre-Rebellion Story, Queerplatonic Relationships, SM is the big bad but the enemy was always capitalism, inaccurate technology and pseudoscience, renyang are best fwb that are sort of not really in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:15:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29554095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeyoung/pseuds/faeyoung
Summary: In this vertical city of sharp rust and concrete hierarchy, Yangyang keeps a collection of moments that he wants to live in forever—Dejun geeking out about their bionic projects; Jaemin's look of adoration reserved only for his coffee; Renjun, Renjun, and more Renjun.Somehow, an android that doesn't kill him on sight makes it into the collection.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Liu Yang Yang, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Liu Yang Yang
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	neon signs of life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Liu Yangyang meets and miraculously escapes an SM android, and it bothers him so much he goes back to test if it'll happen again. Curiosity outweighs self-preservation, always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Chapter title comes from WayV's After Midnight lyrics
> 
> \- This is! My first fic ever, so forgive me for any formatting mistakes ajskdlgha and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> \- I WOULD NOW LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO GIVE MY EVERYTHING TO STINSTIN. This story and me as a writer wouldn't exist without her. Thank you so so much for encouraging me to write, reading over my 2944 drafts, and overall being the greatest source of support and inspiration I could ever ask for. I am your #1 fan.

Life is measured in moments, and this one—if Yangyang doesn’t die by the end of it—will surely join the collection flashing before his eyes when he comes face to face with his mortality: 

The android tilts its head behind the barrel of Yangyang’s gun. 

Mortality looks like this: silver hair floating unnaturally in the wind like spun mercury, steel lashes fanned out against glittering bronze cheeks. Yangyang stares into the android’s large, glassy eyes flashing blue-white as it blinks and hysterically applauds SM for at least making the last thing he’ll ever see so beautiful. 

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” Yangyang grits through his voice changer. The threat is useless; androids don’t need to do something as rudimentary as _move_ to access their fucking hive mind network. 

He has maybe two minutes before backup arrives. His hoverboard is collapsed in his pocket, and he’s high up enough that he’ll have plenty of time to unfold it on the way down if he jumps. Jaemin once warned him that free fall makes you a free target, but right now Yangyang isn’t sure if that matters at all. Even if this model is too pretty to be a culler, he’ll be dead long before he reaches the edge. 

Trespassing is supposed to be a minor offense. But of course nothing is a minor offense in the uptiers, and the roofs are as uptiers as you can get—which is to say, as good as dead for Yangyang, whose lowtier sweat and dust cling to his skin and pool in his pores—and _this_ roof belongs to SM, just as this android belongs to SM. The technicalities of the law don’t matter much to the owners of the police force.

Said android raises an eyebrow. “A bullet won’t kill me,” it points out, and Yangyang is momentarily thrown by its melodic voice, like silver chimes in summer. “And you’d draw attention. You don’t want that, do you?”

“We can find out,” Yangyang threatens, his finger tense on the trigger and his heart marching up his throat. “Which one is faster, my gun or your friends?”

“I’d rather not,” it replies, shrugging. “I don’t want to be found, nor do I want you to die.”

Yangyang feels his eye twitching. He keeps his gun trained on the bot’s face and digs his nails into his palm to assure himself he’s not _already_ dead, that this isn’t some weird kinky postmortem hallucination. It doesn’t help that the bot is so damned _pretty_.

“What are you talking abo—”

“Oh, it’s almost midnight,” the android comments suddenly, frowning as if disappointed. “Patrols will be here soon. You should probably leave now.”

Yangyang twitches again. “If you think I’m going to take my eyes off you—”

The android rolls its eyes. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already. Leave—or did you want to be caught snooping around SM’s backyard?”

It has a point; Yangyang isn’t sure how he’s still alive. He waits for a beat, _is this a game??_ and takes a cautious step back, tensing for the android to spring up and—put a bullet in his skull, perhaps, but he’s heard of more creative ways in recent years. The android rolls its eyes again, its head lolling back with the force of its movement. The whole thing is rather dramatic, somewhat reminiscent of Renjun, and makes Yangyang suspect he’s lost his mind.

“One hundred and twenty seconds,” the android reminds him. “And the patrols won’t be as nice as me.”

 _Fuck it_. Yangyang shoves the gun in his waistband and vaults up onto the roof ledge. He chances a final glance at the android—who is just watching him curiously, head cocked and eyes wide, _seriously what the fuck_ —before stepping off the edge and dropping down into the clouds. 

He emerges from the mist with the magnets of his hoverboard clinging precariously to the steel beams of the skyscraper as he races down into the heart of Seoul’s urban monstrosity. There is exactly one other person in this whole city skilled and reckless enough to turn their board sideways and climb buildings instead of riding over laid-out grids, but even Na Jaemin has enough sense to stay out of the uptiers unless absolutely necessary. Yangyang calls it laziness; Jeno tells them they’re both crazy. After tonight, Yangyang admits he might have a point. 

He doesn’t look back until he plunges straight into the crowds on Dongdaemun Plaza. There’s no sign of anyone following him, but still he weaves between gaggles of drunk tourists and takes refuge behind the gargantuan, semi-reptilian form of someone with truly impressive body alterations to disable his mask. He wanders for half an hour just to be safe before taking the long way home, the last of the adrenaline draining out of his body and leaving him with only a bone-deep exhaustion. 

“Where have you been?” Kun demands as he slides in through his bedroom window an hour past midnight. Yangyang winces; so much for discretion. 

“I went out for some air,” he replies mildly. He docks his board into its charger and sits down next to Kun. 

Kun eyes the battery levels suspiciously. “How high did you go, Yangyang? Didn’t I tell you to stay out of the uptiers?”

 _Ah_. He should’ve known better than to hope to fool Kun. 

Yangyang presses the heel of his palms to his eyes tiredly and mumbles, “I know, I’m sorry. I just—today...”

Kun softens as he trails off and puts an arm over his shoulders. “It’s that time of the year,” he finishes for him, a similar grief weighing down his eyes. Yangyang’s heart clenches; if there’s anyone who understands him right now, it’s certainly Kun.

“Mom always wanted to see the stars,” he offers quietly. It’s the same excuse he’s been giving every year since they’d opened their front door to a culler and a gun. 

Another moment in his collection: Kun’s hands trembling on his shoulders as they watch the android march their parents’ bodies into the airlift, the arrest warrant burned into his eyelids so that every time he blinks he sees: _wanted for sedition (NCT affiliate); cull on sight—_

“She did,” Kun agrees. He pats Yangyang on the shoulder and ruffles his hair a bit. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

Yangyang is not sure if he wants to cry or laugh. He had stared down an android at the other end of his gun tonight, and somehow he’s here now, home with Kun’s arms around him. Alive, safe.

“Me too,” he echoes, just a touch hysterically. 

They sit there for a while, taking comfort in each other’s company, before Kun leaves him with strict instructions to wash up and eat something before crashing. 

It’s past two in the morning by the time Yangyang steps out of the shower and throws himself onto his bunk. Every time he closes his eyes it’s the distant neon lights of Gangnam District glittering off silver hair and golden skin, and Yangyang faintly wonders if he’d hit his head and just forgot about it. 

* * *

The next day, Yangyang corners Ten at work the moment the man lifts his head from his computers. Lee Taeyong’s people had apparently recovered a cyborg corpse and wanted the data in the computer side of her brain, but none of the hackers on his team had any experience in cyber-organic translation. So a favor had been called in, and suddenly their resident coder is preoccupied with SM’s ridiculous encryption (because of course it’s SM tech) and all bionic projects at the clinic are put on hold. 

The frustration on Ten’s face does little to deter Yangyang. He is firm in his position as Ten’s favorite, and he is impatient for answers. The conclusion he’d drawn after a sleepless night of the android’s tittering voice echoing in his ears is that there is simply no way it was merely a bot. Artificial intelligence is an elite, elusive field few in the lowtiers can afford to be concerned with, but Ten is notoriously an expert in all things computers. If Yangyang wanted to pull info about AI progression without alarming his more suspicious friends, Ten is his best option.

Ten hits another dead-end in the code and groans, before turning to Yangyang sulkily. “Why do you ask?”

Yangyang shrugs, grinning cutely. “Just curious, _ge_.” 

He might be laying it on a bit too thick, but if Ten insists on babying him, then he definitely will not hesitate to exploit it.

Ten coos and tussles Yangyang’s hair. “Well, as far as I know, the best AIs in the market are android programs. There are too many legal restrictions on rogue machine learning and code expansion to develop true AIs with capacity for consciousness,” he says, then makes a face. “Not that that stops anyone from trying.”

Yangyang hums and thinks about the insatiable curiosity in the gold android’s face. “Are there like, androids good enough to mimic humans?”

Ten frowns. “I mean—there’s no record of any one passing the CAPTCHA test. The best of the best can mimic some human behavior, but even then it’s just common mannerisms. Android programming directs its energy towards data collection and decision-making so there’s not much room for personality.” Then he gives Yangyang a puzzled look. “Why the sudden interest in androids?”

“Nothing, really. Just—would feel wrong, is all, if they were kind of human,” Yangyang muses. Then he sees Ten’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm and quickly adds, “But it sounds like they’re not.”

“Right,” Ten says slowly. 

“Anyway!” Yangyang jumps up and points to the screens. “Any progress? Can I heIp?”

Ten smacks his hand away from the holograms and tuts at him. “You don’t know anything about coding, Yangyang, don’t mess up my flow.”

“What flow? You’re stuck. Maybe you could use a fresh perspective!” 

He regrets this comment a moment later when Ten launches excitedly into a lecture about block chains and Caesar ciphers. Yangyang nods diligently through it, but excuses himself as soon as Jaemin arrives, zombie-eyed from spearheading the heist last night, leaving them to their cryptology-induced mania. He knows enough code to fine-tune electric fields through EAPs to simulate muscle contraction, but he’s a bionics engineer instead of a hacker for a reason. 

"You’re staying until the race tonight?" Yangyang asks as Jaemin sets up his computers.

Jaemin takes a long sip of his coffee. "Mmmh," he replies.

"Didn't sleep much, huh? Think you can still keep up with me like this?"

"Uh huh," Jaemin tells his cup. Yangyang rolls his eyes and leaves him alone.

Na Jaemin is the type of person whose energy grows as the day goes on (Yangyang is uncertain if this is because he is simply not a morning person or because his veins increasingly saturate with caffeine instead of oxygen with each hourly espresso shot). By the time Yangyang hands off the mod workshop to Dejun and bids goodbye to Kunhang, who is giving him the stink eye at the front desk for lucking out of a night shift, Jaemin is bouncing off the walls.

"I swear if we miss Jisung's race because you were busy jerking off to your sex bots," he grumbles, tapping his feet restlessly and twirling the square of his folded hoverboard between his fingers.

Yangyang shoves him towards the exit. "Fuck off, I don’t even build robots," he protests.

“Oh, yes, you and your precious metal limbs,” Jaemin mocks. "Is that how the kids get their sex toys these days?”

Yangyang shuts the clinic door on his face. Jaemin sputters and flings it back open as Yangyang steps onto his hoverboard, shifting his feet and testing his balance. "Alright, old man, are we going through Gangnam this time?"

Jaemin shrugs and unfolds his board with a twist of his fingers. "How about the quickest route? I wasn't kidding about missing Jisung's race."

"A free-for-all?

Jaemin smirks. “Otherwise you’d lose.”

“Oh, but now _you’re_ going to lose," Yangyang declares, then immediately speeds off. Jaemin hollers a protest behind him, but it’s lost in the mess of rust and concrete of lowtier Seoul.

Yangyang has raced Jaemin enough to know that the other favors maneuvering around the midtier foliage of bridges and freeways. Every time Jaemin picks their route, Yangyang finds himself at the underside of a skywalk or trailing a train car on the monorail. Those races are, as Jaemin said, sure losses every time; Yangyang can’t deny that Jaemin is more skilled when he has at least twice as much experience.

But whereas Jaemin is cautious from years of running from the law, his board his ticket out of a culling order, Yangyang only ever rode for the thrill of it all. Who needs to memorize the midtier mazes when you can go faster and higher in the open air hundreds of meters above? 

He somersaults off the side of a tower at a height well into the uptiers, brushed metal replaced by sleek fiberglass, and aims for the top edge of a billboard a dozen stories down. As he skims the bottom of the cloud layer and curls his fingers around a fistful of mist, for a moment falling feels like flying feels like freedom. The city can seem so beautiful when you’re too far away to make out the grimy details. 

He wonders briefly if that’s what the android was doing last night—watching the people below cut themselves open on the jagged edges of this skyscraper city, their bloodstains a masterpiece from afar.

* * *

He makes it to the race tracks half a minute before Jaemin does, who flips him off as he arrives.

"Crazy bastard," he grumbles, flicking open his watch and transferring their bet to Yangyang's account. "Of course you went straight for the uptiers. And you had a head start!"

“Sure, of two seconds _maybe_ —I won by at least 30.”

Park Jisung chooses this moment to sidle up next to them. Jaemin is immediately distracted, his scoff sliding off his face to make room for a Cheshire grin. "Jisungie," he coos, before latching onto him like some kind of octopod.

Jisung grimaces, but makes no move to detach Jaemin from his side. "Hey, hyungs," he greets. "Are you here for Renjun-hyung?"

“Where is he?” Yangyang asks just as Jaemin murmurs something about only being here for his Jisungie. Yangyang makes a disgusted face in response, and Jaemin sticks his tongue out at him.

“The overpass,” Jisung replies, an elbow blocking what is increasingly resembling an assault from Jaemin. “But he said he wanted to be alone.”

Yangyang waves a hand around. "It’s fine,” he assures, stepping back onto his board. "I’ll go get him. You should go prepare for your race."

"Half an hour, Liu!" Jaemin yells as Yangyang heads toward the exit. "I didn't pry you from your kinky metal room just to have you fuck around with Renjun!"

Yangyang just laughs and flips him off as he leaves.

* * *

The overpass is empty other than Renjun’s orange R35 parked at the side. Renjun is leaning on the railing and staring down at the tracks, a cigarette dangling between his pretty fingers. The piercings on his cheek glint dangerously like knife tips, beckoning for Yangyang to prick his fingers on them like that fairy-tale princess on her cursed spinning wheel.

“Going against doctor’s orders, Renjun?” he tsks, plucking the cigarette from his hand. “I thought you quit.”

Renjun hums noncommittally as Yangyang snubs the smoke out. “What are you doing here?” 

“Jisung told me. You know you have a race in half an hour?”

“I’m aware,” Renjun replies. He reaches up and runs a hand through Yangyang’s hair, wind-wild from his ride. “Did you race Jaemin here?”

“Mhmm.” Yangyang hooks his fingers in Renjun’s belt loops and pulls him closer. “I won,” he declares as Renjun’s hand comes to rest at his neck. “Drinks on him after the race, but only if you win too.”

Renjun scoffs. “I see he’s recovered from last night,” he remarks, and Yangyang hums an affirmation. 

This close, Yangyang can smell the smoke on his breath. 

Renjun tilts his head up and looks him in the eyes. “Speaking of last night—where were you?”

Yangyang’s hands tighten briefly on his waist. “Lucas was there,” he deflects. “You didn’t need another medic.”

Renjun glares at him, unimpressed. “You’re not just a medic to me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What _did_ you mean then?”

Yangyang exhales through his nose and leans into him. “Do we have to talk about this?” he pleads, hiding his face in Renjun’s hair. “You know where I was.”

“The roofs,” Renjun guesses.

Yangyang leans down further and traces the shell of Renjun’s ear with his lips. “Yeah,” he confirms, his fingers digging into Renjun’s hips as he walks them backwards, pressing Renjun against the passenger side of his precious R35. “Do we have to talk about this?” he asks again, a whisper this time, Renjun’s earring cold on his lips.

Renjun sighs and tilts his head back, the edges of his tattoos curling up the side of his neck. “This whole ignoring your self-destructive tendencies thing is really unhealthy,” he comments as Yangyang kisses down his throat.

“Gotta live in the moment,” Yangyang responds, and runs his tongue over a faded hickey at the base of his neck, a leg slotting between Renjun’s thighs. He slips his hands under Renjun’s shirt just as Renjun arches his back and rolls his hips expertly against Yangyang. 

Renjun pulls him in, finally, for a proper kiss. “No,” he murmurs against Yangyang’s lips. “You’re just afraid of the future.”

Yangyang bites down on Renjun’s bottom lip and swallows his gasp, his fingers splayed on the small of Renjun’s back and pressing bruising kisses one after another onto Renjun’s mouth, his throat, his collarbones. He doesn’t respond, because they both know that Renjun is right. 

How can he not be afraid, when he knows there must be a file out there with Renjun’s name on it that reads, so familiarly, _wanted for treason (NCT affiliate); cull on sight—_?

* * *

It’s a new moon and the stars are out, so Yangyang decides to go back to the roof. If he stopped to think about it, this decision is pretty obviously a horrible one, but if he stopped to think about these things, he’ll have to think about how his life is measured in moments and every next moment is one where someone he loves might be bleeding out at the feet of a culler, bleeding out on a stretcher on the airlift, bleeding out to join the rest of this city—

So yeah. He doesn’t think about it. And now he’s back in the uptiers a quarter to midnight, and there’s an android on the roof with him.

“It’s you again,” The android comments. On the other side of the roof, Yangyang is leaning on the ledge, the neon signs of Gangnam below a blur of purple and green through the clouds (or smog; there’s not much of a difference). 

Yangyang rubs his forefinger on the trigger of his gun and grins crookedly. “Are you going to kill me?”

The android scans him slowly, and Yangyang fights the urge to fidget. The openly curious look on its face makes it feel less like an assessing scan and more like when he first met Renjun and felt his eyes drag up his body appreciatively—like he’s being checked out. Which is absurd, because he’s talking to an _android_. 

“No,” it replies, graphite-gray hair falling weightless across its forehead and curling around its ears. Yangyang wants to run his hand through it, rub the strands between his fingers and find out its chemical composition. 

“Why not?” he asks instead. 

The android blinks slowly, and it’s this blank look of confusion as if it’s literally translating his words from audio to binary that makes it seem more machine-like than any of its cosmetic deviations. Then it makes a sound that Yangyang belatedly recognizes as a huff of laughter, and asks, “Why would I? You’re the most interesting thing to ever happen to me.”

Yangyang blanches. “That’s ominous, but I guess I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Another huff of laughter. It’s just this side of unnatural, like a tinkle of bells instead of anything produced from organic vocal cords. “If you keep me a secret, I’ll keep yours,” it offers, and—to Yangyang’s alarm—drifts closer, holding out a perfectly sculpted hand, pinky raised. When Yangyang stays frozen for a moment too long, it adds, “This is still how humans make promises, right?”

Yangyang nods jerkily. His breath escapes in an incredulous laugh as the android links up their pinkies, calloused skin against smooth silicone. It’s warm, and that surprises Yangyang enough to hold on even after the android presses their thumbs together to seal the promise. 

“I don’t have a name anymore, but you can call me Haechan. And I prefer he/him.”

 _Anymore?_ Yangyang bites down his questions and clasps its— _his_ palm in a handshake. “I’m Xiaoyang,” he says weakly, still marveling at the contrast between Haechan’s delicate bronze fingers humming with microcomputers and his bony knuckles scarred from working with jagged metals, and _holy shit he’s holding hands with an android what the fuck_ —

“Xiaoyang,” Haechan says, swirling the syllables in his mouth in a perfect imitation of Yangyang’s pronunciation. Yangyang suppresses a shudder, and a smile stretches across Haechan’s unmarred face. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Sure,” Yangyang manages. They are still holding hands.

“You should come after midnight next time,” Haechan suggests, finally letting go. “The patrols are less frequent after that.”

“Next time?”

“Yes, if you’re coming back.” 

Yangyang swallows roughly and shoves his hand back in his pocket. His other hand is still on his gun at his hip. “Why should I? How do I know it’s not a trap?”

Haechan laughs. “I don’t need to set a trap to catch you. But sure, if not killing you twice now isn’t enough, what else can I do to gain your trust? Should I tell you a secret?”

“A secret?” 

“I can’t tell you any of SM’s most kept secrets, of course,” Haechan remarks offhandedly. He sits on the ledge and swings his legs over the edge, looking out at the city below. “But there are some things about the city only I know.”

Yangyang snorts quietly. “A pretty uptier bot like you? I doubt it.”

Haechan tilts his head back and grins, his hair falling into his eyes. “I’m flattered you think I’m pretty,” he teases. “But no, I think you’ll be quite surprised. Have you ever heard of the android graveyard?”

Yangyang shakes his head and silently marvels at how human Haechan’s mannerisms are. Clearly, Ten’s knowledge is outdated if this is what SM is hiding.

“I can tell you where to find it,” Haechan offers. “And when you do, you’ll know you can trust me.”

“Why do you care that I do?” 

Haechan smiles at him. “Well, I’d like for you to come back. It’s very lonely up here.”

* * *

The search results for “android graveyard” are rather useless, although Yangyang does find a flyer for some grim reaper cult whose doctrines border uncomfortably on necrophilia that he forwards to Kunhang as a joke. Jaemin, the self-proclaimed expert on miscellaneous secrets of the city, squinted at him when he’d asked, made a comment about Yangyang’s kinks getting out of hand, and then turned back to the dozens of screens he and Ten have built a holographic man cave out of. The decryption project, apparently, has not been going well.

Yangyang is aware that having zero corroboration is definitely a tick in favor of this being a trap. But also, Yangyang possesses the perfect blend of zero common sense and too much reckless curiosity—he’s a scientist, after all. And in his defense, he is at least smart enough to bring back up. 

Renjun cocks his hip and sighs. “Yangyang, I’m once again so glad I decided not to date your fool ass,” he drawls. “You’ve brought me to a landfill when we could be making out in my car.”

Yangyang swats at him half-heartedly. “Shut up, you’ll like it.”

“A landfill,” Renjun repeats, unimpressed (probably rightly so). Yangyang rolls his eyes, ties a handkerchief around Renjun’s face and kisses him on his cloth-covered nose.

“You’ll see,” he promises, and drags Renjun towards the fence.

Renjun hisses his complaints about the smell, the mud and compost squishing beneath their feet, _the smell, Yangyang, why_ , but still follows grumpily as they squeeze through a gap in the rusted links of the fence.

The city hadn’t bothered to install a magnetic grid below the landfill—Yangyang had hoped otherwise, but his hoverboard is pretty much just a limp sheet of metal here—so they stroll through the foul smelling garbage, swatting at flies and jumping away from rodents scuttling past their feet. Like the gentleman he is, Yangyang endures Renjun’s nails digging into his palm and helps him climb over mountains of trash, catching him before he can cut himself on the sharp edges of hard plastic. 

Garbage diving: the most romantic of adventures. Truly, he is such a considerate not-boyfriend. 

An hour later finds them at the corner of the landfill that borders the Yellow Sea, the compost and plastics transitioning to warps of steel and glass. The acrid-filled ocean doesn’t smell a whole lot better than sewage, but the breeze alleviates the worst of it. 

“This entire area used to be suburbs, but since the ocean acidity rose and Seoul started expanding upwards, people moved out and, of course, thirty million people in the city needed somewhere to dump their trash,” Yangyang explains. “Most of the landfill is non-recyclable and non-degradable shit like cheap plastic and—well, you smell it—literal shit. But this corner!”

Yangyang runs ahead and up a small hill of clinking metal shells. He turns back to Renjun and grins dazzlingly. “This corner is _SM’s_ precious junkyard.”

Renjun climbs up next to him and looks around skeptically. “They dump their trash here instead of at an actual junkyard?”

“Oh, they couldn’t possibly let their technology fall into anyone else’s hands. No one comes to a landfill, and even less would travel far enough to this corner.” 

Yangyang spreads his hands, and in the weak orange light of the late-afternoon sun, the metal scraps focus into shapes—a leg there, a torso here, metal bodies twisted and broken and forgotten. “Welcome, Renjun,” he announces solemnly, “To the android graveyard.”

It’s certainly a sight to behold. Against the glitter of the ocean, limbs of aluminum and iron jut unnaturally out of piles of rust. Bacteria and vultures have eaten away at any synthetic skin partially composed of collagen, exposing steel bones and copper arteries. Renjun’s piercings join the constellation of metals glaring in the setting sun.

Renjun is quiet, which is never a good sign. Yangyang swallows down the delusional truth threatening to burst out of his mouth and waits.

“So,” Renjun asks eventually, “how did you find out about this place?” 

Yangyang grins plastically. “What do you mean?”

Renjun rolls his eyes. “This is basically your wet dream,” he grouses. “You would’ve shown me earlier if you’d known about it. You said it yourself—SM doesn’t want anyone to know about this place. So how’d you find out?”

“Renjun, darling, you know the wet dream can’t be complete without you,” Yangyang teases, stepping into Renjun’s space and tugging lightly on his bangs. 

Renjun puts a palm to his chest and pushes him away. “Don’t change the subject. If Jaemin knew, he’d have told me, and Jaemin makes knowing things his job. How did you find out?”

“Patient confidentiality,” Yangyang lies.

“Bullshit.”

“Hey!” he protests, “I’m a doctor, of course I need to respect the privacy of my clients!”

“You are _not_ certified and we both know it—”

“It’s the principle that counts—”

“Fine, don’t tell me,” Renjun snaps. Then he sighs, and adds, “Just be careful—it’s SM,” as if that explains everything. In this city, it does; SM owns everything on the market worth owning and has an exclusive monopoly on the most dangerous things in existence. SM trampled the largest reform movement in Seoul for decades and burned down his neighborhood to make a point. SM is responsible, indirectly or not, for almost every bloodstained moment in his collection.

Yangyang feels a strange kinship with the metal carcasses in this graveyard.

“Of course,” Yangyang replies. “Now, are you gonna help me salvage or what?”

Renjun sighs, long-suffering, and grumbles about an afternoon wasted. “The sex better be really good,” he warns. Yangyang laughs good-naturedly and sneaks a hand under Renjun’s shirt to pinch him in the waist.

“Anything for you, Renjun.”

* * *

Expectedly, the androids’ central computers are missing from the graveyard, leaving behind only eerie piles of decapitated metal bodies. And to Renjun’s great disappointment, they do not find any fragments of their nuclear cores that might be refitted into energy sources (namely, a new car battery). 

But, Yangyang decides as he dumps a handful of synthetic skin samples onto Dejun’s lab table, it absolutely deserved the _wet dream_ title. 

Their illegal mod workshop, hidden away in the back of the clinic, runs purely on Dejun’s genius and what Yangyang could recover from his parents’ blueprints. Over the years, they’ve gone from reinforcing bones with steel to building synthetic muscular matrices for Kun’s patients, but those projects always lean on the side of riskily experimental. Studying professional tech—particularly _SM’s_ tech—would bring much needed expertise and security to their work.

“Is this organic?” Dejun is asking as he sets up his microscope. “It feels organic but there’s zero decay.”

Yangyang grins at him. “Completely synthetic, probably doesn’t even need organic anchoring. The metal frame rusted and it was fine.”

“That’s incredible,” Dejun breathes. “And the sensory processing—?”

“I haven’t looked at it, but I doubt it’ll be a problem considering it’s android tech.”

“This is incredible, Yangyang,” Dejun repeats. “This means—Chenle could—!”

Yangyang smiles and shoots a thumbs up. Zhong Chenle is a precious little shit, Park Jisung’s best friend with a shattered wrist from when he was caught playing piano in an uptier restaurant after closing, and they’ve been at a loss as to how to help him until now. Unlike reinforced joints, an illegal prosthetic hand is difficult to hide, and the semi-organic matrices they’ve been making for Kun would die away easily without being anchored into living cells. But android technology changes everything.

This thing that they do—putting people back together after they’ve been shattered by reality, reassembled from pieces of shiny trash thrown away by the uptiers—is definitely dangerous if anyone pays too much attention, could get them culled if it’s revealed just _who_ they supply their mods to. But Kun had inherited their mother’s white lab coat and heart of gold, and Yangyang wasn’t going to let him do it all alone. 

Jaemin pokes his head in the doorway and grins with too much teeth. “Yangyang, you done here?”

Dejun shoots a questioning look at Yangyang. Yangyang just shrugs in a _fuck if I know, Na Jaemin is a cryptid_ kind of way. It is a sentiment that Dejun shares with him on a spiritual level.

Renjun leans against the door frame, freshly showered with the ends of his hair curling into his eyes. “You’re coming back with me,” Renjun informs him. “You’d spend all night in this workshop otherwise.”

Yangyang snorts. “You, of all people, do not get to lecture me about overworking.” 

“You’re right, I don’t actually care,” Renjun admits. He flicks his hair off his forehead and smirks. “I just wanted to cash in on your promise.” 

Yangyang blinks, and then laughs a bit breathlessly. “You’re a menace,” he tells Renjun fondly as he starts packing up his things.

Jaemin is complaining about his apartment’s thin walls and his flatmates' kinks to a very flustered Dejun, who Yangyang is certain never wanted to know that Jeno is a bottom but Jaemin is versatile, _wink wink_. Is he _flirting_ with Dejun? But doesn’t he have a thing with Jisung??

 _A cryptid_ , Yangyang repeats to himself. 

“Are you still working on that cyborg?” he cuts in, taking pity on Dejun because Renjun, watching with a bored amusement, definitely won’t. “I thought you were an expert on SM encryptions.”

Jaemin turns to him and scowls. Dejun’s face returns to a semi-normal color. “If it was just SM, I’d have cracked it already,” Jaemin grouses.

“Is the bio stuff that difficult to translate?” Dejun asks, intrigued. 

“No, Ten’s got that, it’s just—I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s based on SM's stuff but way better.”

Yangyang frowns. SM’s cybersecurity is notoriously the best on the market, and also— “I thought it _was_ SM tech?”

“It’s been modified,” Jaemin replies, scrunching his face. “The code is disgustingly well-written. Work of a genius, definitely, and they must’ve had experience in SM.”

Yangyang hums. “Any leads on who they are?” Someone who knows SM’s secrets well enough to recreate them and has, somehow, evaded their wrath so far would make an invaluable ally—or a serious hindrance, depending on their goals.

Jaemin shakes his head. 

“Let me know when you find any,” Renjun says, a hard gleam in his eyes. “I want them on my team.”

“Yeah, sure, Renjun, let me just figure out how to track code that is _literally hidden inside people’s bones_.”

“I can help,” Dejun volunteers, and Yangyang winces internally as Jaemin turns back to him. His smile is all teeth. 

“Yeah?” Jaemin says, his eyebrows inching up his forehead as he looks down at Dejun. When the fuck did he get close enough to Dejun to be able to tower over him? Sneaky bastard.

“Sure, if Ten hasn’t thought of anything already,” Dejun answers awkwardly. His ears are red at the tips, and Yangyang groans internally at the thought of another one of his coworkers succumbing to Jaemin’s weird charms. 

Seeing Lucas at Renjun’s breakfast table wasn’t _too_ horrifying, but only because Lucas can’t be awkward if he tried. Dejun, on the other hand, is made of fluster. Yangyang _really_ doesn’t want to have weird morning-after breakfasts with his bionics partner.

“We’re leaving,” he announces, and points an accusing finger at Jaemin. “If you’re so upset by the thin walls, don’t come back tonight. I’ve been seeing too much of your face lately.”

Jaemin huffs and folds his arms. “Kicking me out of my own home, how dare you.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Renjun dismisses as he takes Yangyang’s hand and tugs him towards the door. 

Dejun fidgets and glances furtively at Jaemin. “You’re not going with them?” 

Yangyang escapes the room just as Jaemin leans down and reminds Dejun of his promise to help him. Yangyang had tried to save him, but Dejun dug his own hole and now he gets to lie in it. 

“At least we’ll have the apartment to ourselves,” Renjun remarks.

“Oh? But who was it that wanted to make out in your car?”

“Jaemin’s sheets have a ridiculously high thread count,” Renjun replies mildly.

Yangyang’s grin takes over his face as he laughs. “You’re a menace,” he repeats. 

Renjun pushes back his hair and smirks. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

* * *

Sometimes, if there is a moment that is singularly beautiful (and not in the violent way this city is beautiful), Yangyang will dedicate hours to painstakingly recording every detail of it in his sketchbook. In these pages are the freeze-frames that he wants to live in forever: the dawn light pouring over Kun’s shoulders as he cooks; Dejun’s glasses sitting crooked on his nose while he dozes; Jeno leaning out of the window of his speeding car to slap Jaemin’s outstretched hand. 

Predictably there is a lot of Renjun in this journal. In the five years since they’ve met, since he fell head over heels in love, was rejected, and then began floating in this space of not-quite-but-not-only, Yangyang has probably filled several sketchbooks with Huang Renjun, the prettiest boy he’s ever met.

So it comes as a surprise, then, when he opens his sketchbook to his most recent Renjun doodle and sees Haechan in the lines of the charcoal instead. This Renjun’s eyes are too large, his face too round, his hair too long. 

Yangyang stares at his not-Renjun sketch and tries to justify it to himself: the graveyard hadn’t been a trap, and he’s so curious, and he did promise, and Haechan really is very pretty—

But it’s simpler than that. Like with everything else in this sketchbook, this is an image he wants to keep forever: Haechan standing at the precipice of the uptiers, smiling golden under the starlight and trying to look through the smog for neon signs of life. Nevermind SM and all that SM would do if they found him, or if this was an especially elaborate trap.

 _Be careful_ , Renjun had said. 

But Yangyang has never been good at being careful.

* * *

“Welcome back,” Haechan greets him. “I take it you found the graveyard?”

Yangyang nods, and stands close enough to wonder if the warmth feels is his imagination or if Haechan has systems designed to emulate body heat. Does he have a core, the same way Rejun’s car is a nuclear heart pumping liquid nitrogen through its steel arteries, or is he more like the prosthetics Yangyang works on, thousands of circuits whirring to animate each gear at a time? Yangyang itches with the urge to test his theories, to put his fingers to where the pulse point should be on Haechan’s neck, dig under his skin and take him apart in his hands.

“Not a trap,” Yangyang remarks.

Haechan huffs, head turning to meet Yangyang’s eyes. His hair drifts about in soft whorls, and Yangyang imagines that if the stars were visible tonight, they’d be the same color. “No, I told you it wasn’t. Do you trust me yet?”

“Of course not,” Yangyang replies automatically, but he doesn’t really know anymore. Haechan has taken all of his expectations and beliefs and put them through a disintegrator. 

Haechan pouts. “But I already told you a secret,” he whines.

Yangyang studies him carefully. “Why are you doing this?” he blurts.

Haechan blinks. “What do you mean?”

“ _This_ ,” Yangyang repeats, gesturing to the space between them. “Why are you letting me live? This whole gaining my trust thing and telling me about the graveyard—why?”

“I told you. You’re the most interesting thing to happen to me, and it’s lonely here.”

“There are forty million people in this city.”

“And you’re the only one that ever came up here. It’s not like I can drop down to Hongdae and go bar hopping—they’ve got a tracker on me.”

It’s ridiculous, really, that Yangyang thinks he sounds more like a prisoner than a killing machine right now. He should get his head checked.

“What about other androids?” he asks instead.

Haechan flaps a hand around nonchalantly. “Oh, they’re—you know— _androids_. SM’s precious little artificial people-bots.”

Yangyang scoffs a little. “And you’re not?” he replies, a touch meanly.

Haechan gasps and puts a hand to his chest where his heart would be if he were human. “I’m offended, Xiaoyang! You think I’m anything as perfectly obedient as these newer models?”

“So you’re an early model.”

“Mhmm. Honestly, it’s so stupid of them to let me stay active when they know I have a high risk factor. I think SM just keeps me around to feel good about themselves.”

Yangyang frowns. “Because you’re the first AI they made?”

“Oh, no, I’m not _that_ old. I’m just the—shiniest trophy, I guess.”

“What does that even mean?”

Haechan just shrugs. 

Yangyang stares at him. Then he takes a gamble and asks, “Did you know any of them? The androids at the graveyard?”

Haechan blinks, his mouth parted in surprise. He turns away and looks down at the city below. 

“One of them was my best friend,” he answers eventually. The expression on his face reminds Yangyang uncomfortably of Chenle, when Kun had said that there’s no mending his hand. 

“Your best friend?” he echoes, wondering when he’ll stop being surprised by the things the android says— _make me a promise_ , _I want you to trust me_ , _I’m afraid you won’t come back_ —

Haechan chuckles softly in an almost-scoff, a ghost of a smile on his heart-shaped lips. “He used to be named Minhyung,” he recalls, “but he asked me to call him Mark. He always knew what he wanted, even when we’re not supposed to want anything.”

“And he’s—?”

“Dead,” Haechan confirms, and shrugs. “As much as androids can be _dead_. We’re not exactly living beings either.”

Yangyang flinches at that, a sharp reminder of where he is—what he’s doing. “Right,” he responds, mouth dry. “So why’d they scrap him? Couldn’t they just—recycle, or something?”

Haechan laughs, this time a bitter and jagged thing, like the bells have rusted over and crumbled into knives. “Oh, they tried. Mark was rebooted three times over, but he kept glitching anyway. He was a first gen, you know? A _Mark One_ ,” he laughs again, an inside joke shared between himself and a ghost, and Yangyang is so lost—

“SM hadn't thought to put controls on us yet, or wipe our memories from before, so he kept bits of himself buried in his code and they would come back even after they wiped him,” Haechan continues. “And he kept remembering to _want_ things—the world outside, to stop killing people, to leave with me, a future for us—but we’re coded against that, of course. So he glitched, over and over and _over_ —”

Haechan blinks rapidly, as if expecting tears to start falling out of his eyes, but of course they never do. Yangyang reaches out and pretends to brush something from his cheek anyway. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his common sense is screaming that it’s just a programmed mannerism meant to trap him. The part that can’t stand any _hurt_ written plainly on people’s faces, the part that takes him through back alleys and junkyards for parts that might make someone whole again, that had him steeling himself for heartbreak as he went through his parents’ charred blueprints for his lovely foolish brother, is louder.

“They dumped him in the graveyard,” Haechan whispers, “Because when it comes down to it, we’re pretty disposable.”

Yangyang’s hand is trembling on Haechan’s cheek. He pulls away belatedly, and Haechan goes still—not quite tensing the way flesh-and-blood humans do.

“He wanted to stop killing people,” Yangyang repeats, thinking of his home up in flames, his parents bleeding out on his doorstep.

“All the Mark Ones were combat units before SM put an AI in them,” Haechan replies plaintively. His smile is a gash on his pretty face. “I think he might’ve killed me, actually.”

Yangyang short-circuits. “He—what?"

“Sorry, not _me—_ the person I’m modelled after,” Haechan corrects. “Lee Donghyuck.”

“ _Modelled_ after?” Yangyang repeats like a broken record, horror crawling up his spine and spreading through his nerves until his hands are shaking with it.

Haechan laughs at his expression. “You didn’t think SM could actually create an AI out of nothing, did you? I’m as close as they can get to human, and it’s still just a copy of this,” he taps Yangyang’s temple, “Translated into binary. They’re a ways away from their perfect soldiers.”

Yangyang swallows, barbed wire clogging his throat. _Perfect soldiers_ and _close to human_ on loop in his mind. “And Lee Donghyuck?”

Haechan shrugs. “Probably somewhere in the ocean.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter @faeyoung_p :)


End file.
